BOLIVIA: Kindly Pay in Advance

On the eve of the nationalization of
Bolivia's three big tin companies, the revolutionary government handed
them a whopping $520 million bill. The government claimed that the
companies had made illegal profits by juggling foreign exchange
accounts and evading income taxes.

For all the legalistic appearance of accounting to the last penny, the
bill was strictly political. Orators of the government's National
Revolutionary Movement have charged for years that the tin companies
were getting away with huge sums. Now, by socking the three companies
with demands far exceeding their own valuation of their properties ($60
million), the government hoped to...